A story in The New York Times notes that drastic changes in the partisan make-up of the voter rolls bodes well for Democrats this year and may produce - dare we say it - a political realignment.
In several states, including the traditional battlegrounds of Nevada and Iowa, Democrats have surprised their own party officials with significant gains in registration. In both of those states, there are now more registered Democrats than Republicans, a flip from 2004. No states have switched to the Republicans over the same period, according to data from 26 of the 29 states in which voters register by party. (Three of the states did not have complete data.)
In six states, including Iowa, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, the Democratic piece of the registration pie grew more than three percentage points, while the Republican share declined. In only three states — Kentucky, Louisiana and Oklahoma — did Republican registration rise while Democratic registration fell, but the Republican increase was less than a percentage point in Kentucky and Oklahoma. Louisiana was the only state to register a gain of more than one percentage point for Republicans as Democratic numbers declined.
What's happening here? A number of things, according to the article. First, there is an increase in Democratic registrations, but more significantly, there is a huge decrease in Republican registrations (and a corresponding increase in "independent" registrations). These changes are already having an impact up and down the ticket:
In the 26 states and the District of Columbia where registration data were available, the total number of registered Democrats increased by 214,656, while the number of Republicans fell by 1,407,971.
The unsettled political ground has manifested itself in state and local elections. Twenty-three state legislatures are controlled by Democrats and 14 by Republicans, with 12 states with divided chambers (Nebraska has a nonpartisan legislature). After the 2000 election, 16 state legislatures were dominated by Democrats, and 17 by Republicans, with 16 divided.
It is a similar story in governors’ mansions. After the 2004 election, there were 28 Republican governors and 22 Democrats; those numbers are now reversed. After the 2000 election, there were only 19 Democratic governors.
Young people are playing a roll as well, and it's great to see a major political story get the story right - this is about more than excitement over Obama's candidacy:
In many states, Democrats have benefited from a rise in younger potential voters, after declines or small increases in the number of those voters in the 1980s and ’90s. The population of 18- to 24-year-olds rose from about 27 million in 2000 to nearly 30 million in 2006, according to Census figures.
Mr. Obama’s candidacy has drawn many young people to register to vote, and some of the recent gains by Democrats have no doubt been influenced by excitement over his campaign. But even before Mr. Obama’s ascendancy among Democrats, younger voters were moving toward the Democratic Party, demographers said.
Dowell Myers, a professor of policy, planning and development at the University of Southern California, also noted that a younger, native-born generation of Latinos who have a tendency to support Democrats is coming of age.
Further, young Americans have migrated in recent years to high-growth states that have traditionally been dominated by Republicans, like Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, which may have had an impact on the changing registration numbers in those places.
This is all great news, but one word of caution. Let's remember that the vast majority of these new young voters are college students. There's still a lot of work to do registering non-college students. These numbers should be a lot higher come October.
